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Prussia
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Symbols
The main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background.
The black and white national colours stem from the Teutonic Knights, who wore a white coat embroidered with a black cross. The combination of these colours with the white and red Hanseatic colours of the free cities Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck resulted in the black-white-red commercial flag of the North German Confederation, which became the flag of the German Empire in 1871.
Suum cuique ("to each, his own"), the motto of the Order of the Black Eagle created by King Frederick I in 1701, was often associated with the whole of Prussia. The Iron Cross, a military decoration created by King Frederick William III in 1813, was also widely associated with the country.
Geography and populationPrussia began as a small territory in what was later called East Prussia, which is now divided into the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave of Russia, and the Klaipeda Region of Lithuania.
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Symbols
The main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background.
The black and white national colours stem from the Teutonic Knights, who wore a white coat embroidered with a black cross. The combination of these colours with the white and red Hanseatic colours of the free cities Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck resulted in the black-white-red commercial flag of the North German Confederation, which became the flag of the German Empire in 1871.
Suum cuique ("to each, his own"), the motto of the Order of the Black Eagle created by King Frederick I in 1701, was often associated with the whole of Prussia. The Iron Cross, a military decoration created by King Frederick William III in 1813, was also widely associated with the country.
Geography and populationPrussia began as a small territory in what was later called East Prussia, which is now divided into the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave of Russia, and the Klaipeda Region of Lithuania. The region, originally populated by Baltic Old Prussians who were Christianised and Germanised, became a preferred location for immigration by (later mainly Protestant) Germans as well as Poles and Lithuanians along border regions.
Before its abolition, the territory of the Kingdom of Prussia included "Prussia proper", Brandenburg, the Province of Saxony (including most of the present-day state of Saxony-Anhalt and parts of the state of Thuringia in Germany), Pomerania, Rhineland, Westphalia, Silesia (without Austrian Silesia), Lusatia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Nassau, and a small detached area in the south Hohenzollern, the ancestral home of the Prussian ruling family.
In 1871, Prussia's population numbered 24,69 millions, accounting for 60% of the German Empire's population. In 1910, the population had increased to a number of 40,17 million (62% of the Empire's population). In 1914, Prussia had an area of 354,490 km². In May 1939 Prussia had an area of 297,007 km² and a population of 41,915,040 inhabitants. The Principality of Neuenburg, now the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, was a part of the Prussian kingdom from 1707 to 1848.
Although Prussia was dominanted by Protestant Germans it contained millions of Catholics, and millions of minorities, particularly Poles. East Prussia's southern region of Masuria was largely made up of Germanised Protestant Masurs. This explains in part why the Catholic South German states, especially Austria and Bavaria, resisted Prussian hegemony for so long.
There were substantial Roman Catholic populations in the Rhineland and parts of Westphalia. Also West Prussia, Warmia, Silesia, and the Province of Posen had predominantly Catholic populations. The Kingdom of Prussia acquired these areas from countries with a Catholic majority: the Kingdom of Poland and the Austrian Empire.
In 1871, aproximately 2,4 million Poles lived in Prussia, constituing the largest minority. Other minorities were Danes, Kashubians (72,500 in 1905), Masurians (248,000 in 1905), Lithuanians (101,500 in 1905), Wallones, Czechs and Sorbs.
The area of Greater Poland where the Polish nation had originated became the Province of Posen after the Partitions of Poland. Poles in this Polish-majority province (62% Polish, 38% German) resisted German rule. Also, the southeast portion of Silesia had a majority percentage of Polish population.
Catholics, Poles and Jews didn't have equal status with Protestants.
As a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 the Second Polish Republic was granted these two areas, but also areas with a German majority in the Province of West Prussia. After World War II, East Prussia, Silesia, most of Pomerania, and part of Brandenburg were taken over by either the Soviet Union or Poland.
Early history
In 1226 Duke Konrad I of Masovia invited the Teutonic Knights, a German military order of crusading knights, headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Acre, to conquer the Baltic Prussian tribes on his borders. During 60 years of struggles against the Old Prussians, the order created an independent state which came to control Prussia. After the Livonian Brothers of the Sword joined the Teutonic Order in 1237 they also controlled Livonia (now Latvia and Estonia) and western Lithuania.
The Knights were subordinate only to the pope and the emperor. Their initially close relationship with the Polish Crown deteriorated completely after they conquered Polish-claimed Pomerelia and Danzig (Gdansk), a town mainly populated by German settlers. The Knights were eventually defeated in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 by Poland and Lithuania, allied through the Union of Krewo.
The Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466) began when the Prussian Confederation, a coalition of Hanseatic cities of western Prussia, rebelled against the Order and requested help from the Polish king. The Teutonic Knights were forced to acknowledge the sovereignty and pay tribute to King Casimir IV Jagiellon of Poland in the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), losing western Prussia to Poland in the process.
In 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern, became a Lutheran Protestant and secularised the Order's remaining Prussian territories into the Duchy of Prussia. This was the area east of the mouth of the Vistula River, later sometimes called "Prussia proper". For the first time, these lands were in the hands of a branch of the Hohenzollern family, rulers of the Margraviate of Brandenburg to the west, a German state centered on Berlin and ruled since the 15th century by the Hohenzollern dynasty. Furthermore, with his renunciation of the Order, Albert could now marry and produce offspring.
Brandenburg and Prussia were unified two generations later. Anna, granddaughter of Albert I and daughter of Duke Albert Frederick (reigned 1568–1618), married her cousin Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg. Upon the death of Albert Frederick in 1618, who died without male heirs, John Sigismund was granted the right of succession to the Duchy of Prussia, which was still a Polish fief. From this time the Duchy of Prussia was in personal union with the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The resulting state, known as Brandenburg-Prussia, consisted of geographically disconnected territories in Prussia, Brandenburg, and Rhenish lands of Cleves and Mark.
During the Thirty Years' War, the disconnected Hohenzollern lands were repeatedly marched across by various armies, especially the occupying Swedes. The ineffective and militarily weak Margrave George William (1619–1640) fled from Berlin to Königsberg, the historic capital of the Duchy of Prussia, in 1637. His successor, Frederick William (1640–1688), reformed the army to defend the lands.
Frederick William went to Warsaw in 1641 to render homage to King Wladyslaw IV Vasa of Poland for the Duchy of Prussia, which was still held in fief from the Polish crown. Later, he managed to obtain a discharge from his obligations as a vassal to the Polish king by taking advantage of the difficult position of Poland vis-á-vis Sweden in the Northern Wars and his friendly relations with Russia during a series of Russo-Polish wars. He was finally given full sovereignty over Prussia in the Treaty of Wehlau in 1657.
Frederick William became known as the "Great Elector" for his introduction of absolutism into Brandenburg-Prussia. Above all, he emphasized the importance of a powerful military to protect the state's disconnected territories.
Kingdom of Prussia
On 18 January 1701, Frederick William's son, Elector Frederick III, upgraded Prussia from a duchy to a kingdom, and crowned himself King Frederick I. To avoid offending Leopold I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire where most of his lands lay, Frederick was only allowed to title himself "King in Prussia", not "King of Prussia". However, Brandenburg was treated in practice as part of the Prussian kingdom rather than a separate state.
The state of Brandenburg-Prussia became commonly known as "Prussia", although most of its territory, in Brandenburg, Pomerania, and western Germany, lay outside of Prussia proper. The Prussian state grew in splendour during the reign of Frederick I, who sponsored the arts at the expense of the treasury.
Frederick I was succeeded by his son, Frederick William I (1713–1740) the austere "Soldier King", who did not care for the arts but was thrifty and practical. He is considered the creator of the vaunted Prussian bureaucracy and the standing army, which he developed into one of the most powerful in Europe, although his troops only briefly saw action during the Great Northern War. In view of the size of the army in relation to the total population, Voltaire said later: "Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state!" Also, Frederick William settled more than 20,000 Protestant refugees from Salzburg in thinly populated eastern Prussia, which was eventually extended to the west bank of the Memel river, and other regions. From Sweden he acquired Western Pomerania as far as the Peene in 1720.
In 1740, Frederick William was succeeded by his son, Frederick II, later nicknamed "Frederick the Great". As crown prince he focused on philosophy and the arts; yet, in the first year of his reign he ordered the Prussian army to march into Silesia, a possession of Habsburg Austria to which the Hohenzollerns laid claim based on an old and disputed treaty of succession. In the three Silesian Wars (1740–1763) Frederick succeeded in conquering Silesia from Austria and holding his new possession. In the last, the Seven Years' War, he held it against a coalition of Austria, France, and Russia. Voltaire, a close friend of the king, once described Frederick the Great's Prussia by saying "...it was Sparta in the morning, Athens in the afternoon." From these wars onwards the German dualism dominated German politics until 1866.
Silesia, a region of rich soils and prosperous manufacturing towns, greatly increased the area, population, and wealth of Prussia. Success on the battleground against Austria and other powers proved Prussia's status as one of the great powers of Europe. The Silesian Wars began more than a century of rivalry and conflict between Prussia and Austria as the two most powerful states operating within the Holy Roman Empire (although, ironically, both had extensive territory outside the empire). In 1744 the County of East Frisia fell to Prussia following the extinction of its ruling Cirksena dynasty.
In the last 23 years of his reign until 1786, Frederick II, who understood himself as the "first servant of the state", promoted the development of Prussian areas such as the Oderbruch. At the same time he built up Prussia's military power and participated in the First Partition of Poland with Austria and Russia (1772), an act that geographically connected the Brandenburg territories with those of Prussia proper. During this period, he also opened Prussia's borders to immigrants fleeing from religious persecution in other parts of Europe, such as the Huguenots. Prussia became a safe haven in much the same way that the United States welcomed immigrants seeking freedom in the 19th century.
Frederick the Great, the first "King of Prussia", practised enlightened absolutism. He introduced a general civil code, abolished torture, and established the principle that the crown would not interfere in matters of justice. He also promoted an advanced secondary education, the forerunner of today's German gymnasium (grammar school) system, which prepares the brightest students for university studies. The Prussian education system became emulated in various countries.
Napoleonic Wars
During the reign of King Frederick William II (1786–1797), Prussia annexed additional Polish territory through further Partitions of Poland. His successor, Frederick William III (1797–1840), announced the union of the Prussian Lutheran and Reformed churches into one church.
Prussia took a leading part in the French Revolutionary Wars, but remained quiet for more than a decade due to the Peace of Basel of 1795, only to go once more to war with France in 1806 as negotiations with that country over the allocation of the spheres of influence in Germany failed. Prussia suffered a devastating defeat against Napoleon Bonaparte's troops in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, leading Frederick William III and his family to flee temporarily to Memel. Under the Treaties of Tilsit in 1807, the state lost about half of its area, including the areas gained from the second and third Partitions of Poland, which now fell to the Duchy of Warsaw. Beyond that, the king was obliged to make an alliance with France and join the Continental System.
In response to this defeat, reformers such as Stein and Hardenberg set about modernising the Prussian state. Among their reforms were the liberation of peasants from serfdom, the emancipation of Jews and making full citizens of them, and the institution of self-administration in municipalities. The school system was rearranged, and in 1818 free trade was introduced. The process of army reform ended in 1813 with the introduction of compulsory military service.
After the defeat of Napoleon in Russia, Prussia quit its alliance with France and took part in the Sixth Coalition during the "Wars of Liberation" (Befreiungskriege) against the French occupation. Prussian troops under Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher contributed crucially in the Battle of Waterloo of 1815 to the final victory over Napoleon. Prussia's reward in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna was the recovery of her lost territories, as well as the whole of the Rhineland, Westphalia, and some other territories. These western lands were to be of vital importance because they included the Ruhr Area, the centre of Germany's fledgling industrialisation, especially in the arms industry. These territorial gains also meant the doubling of Prussia's population. In exchange, Prussia withdrew from areas of central Poland to allow the creation of Congress Poland under Russian sovereignty.
Prussia emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as the dominant power in Germany, overshadowing her long-time rival Austria, which had given up the imperial crown in 1806. In 1815 Prussia became part of the German Confederation.
The first half of the 19th century saw a prolonged struggle in Germany between liberals, who wanted a united, federal Germany under a democratic constitution, and conservatives, who wanted to maintain Germany as a patchwork of independent, monarchical states, with Prussia and Austria competing for influence. One small movement that signaled a desire for German unification in this period was the Burschenschaft student movement, comprised of students who encouraged the use of the black-red-gold flag, discussions of a unified German nation, and a progressive, liberal political system. Because of Prussia's size and economic importance, smaller states began to join its free trade area in the 1820s. Prussia benefited greatly from the creation in 1834 of the German Customs Union, which included most German states but excluded Austria.
In 1848 the liberals saw an opportunity when revolutions broke out across Europe. Alarmed, King Frederick William IV agreed to convene a National Assembly and grant a constitution. When the Frankfurt Parliament offered Frederick William the crown of a united Germany, he refused on the grounds that he would not accept a crown from a revolutionary assembly without the sanction of Germany's other monarchs.
The Frankfurt Parliament was forced to dissolve in 1849, and Frederick William issued Prussia's first constitution by his own authority in 1850. This conservative document provided for a two-house parliament. The lower house, or Landtag was elected by all taxpayers, who were divided into three classes whose votes were weighted according to the amount of taxes paid. Women and those who paid no taxes had no vote. This allowed just over one-third of the voters to choose 85% of the legislature, all but assuring dominance by the more well-to-do men of the population. The upper house, which was later renamed the Herrenhaus ("House of Lords"), was appointed by the king. He retained full executive authority and ministers were responsible only to him. As a result, the grip of the landowning classes, the Junkers, remained unbroken, especially in the eastern provinces.
Wars of unification
In 1862 King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as Prime Minister of Prussia. Bismarck was determined to defeat both the liberals and the conservatives by creating a strong united Germany but under the domination of the Prussian ruling class and bureaucracy, not a liberal democracy. Bismarck realized that the Prussian crown could win the support of the people only if he himself took the lead in the fight for the German unification. So he guided Prussia through three wars which together brought William the position of German Emperor.
Schleswig WarsThe Kingdom of Denmark was at the time in personal union with the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, both of which had close ties with each other, although only Holstein was part of the German Confederation. When the Danish government tried to integrate Schleswig, but not Holstein, into the Danish state, Prussia led the German Confederation against Denmark in the First War of Schleswig (1848–1851). Although the Danes were defeated militarily, the European great powers pressured Prussia into returning Schleswig and Holstein to Denmark, in return for assurances that the Danes would not try to integrate Schleswig again. Because Russia supported Austria, Prussia also conceded predominance in the German Confederation to Austria in the Punctation of Olmütz in 1850.
In 1863, Denmark introduced a shared constitution for Denmark and Schleswig. This led to conflict with the German Confederation, which authorized the occupation of Holstein by the Confederation, from which Danish forces withdrew. In 1864, Prussian and Austrian forces crossed the border between Holstein and Schleswig initiating the Second War of Schleswig. The Austro-Prussian forces defeated the Danes, who surrendered both territories. In the resulting Gastein Convention of 1865 Prussia took over the administration of Schleswig while Austria assumed that of Holstein.
Austro-Prussian War
Bismarck realized that the dual administration of Schleswig and Holstein was only a temporary solution, and tensions escalated between Prussia and Austria. The struggle for supremacy in Germany then led to the Austro-Prussian War (1866), triggered by the dispute over Schleswig and Holstein.
On the side of Austria stood the southern German states (including Bavaria and Württemberg), some central German states (including Saxony), and Hanover in the north; on the side of Prussia were Italy, most northern German states, and some smaller central German states. Eventually, the better-armed Prussian troops won the crucial victory at the battle of Königgrätz under Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. The century-long struggle between Berlin and Vienna for dominance of Germany was now over.
Bismarck desired Austria as an ally in the future, and so he declined to annex any Austrian territory. But in the Peace of Prague in 1866, Prussia annexed four of Austria's allies in northern and central Germany—Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau and Frankfurt. Prussia also won full control of Schleswig-Holstein. As a result of these territorial gains, Prussia now stretched uninterrupted across the northern two-thirds of Germany and contained two-thirds of Germany's population. The German Confederation was dissolved, and Prussia cajoled the 21 states north of the Main River into forming the North German Confederation.
Prussia was the dominant state in the new confederation, as the kingdom comprised almost four-fifths of the new state's territory and population. Prussia's near-total control over the confederation was cemented in the constitution drafted for it by Bismarck in 1867. Executive power was held by a president, assisted by a chancellor responsible only to him. The presidency was a hereditary office of the Hohenzollern rulers of Prussia. There was also a two-house parliament. The lower house, or Reichstag (Diet), was elected by universal male suffrage. The upper house, or Bundesrat (Federal Council) was appointed by the state governments. The Bundesrat was, in practice, the stronger chamber. Prussia had 17 of 43 votes, and could easily control proceedings through alliances with the other states.
As a result of the peace negotiations, the states south of the Main remained theoretically independent, but received the (compulsory) protection of Prussia. Additionally, mutual defense treaties were concluded. (See also "Das Lied der Deutschen".) However, the existence of these treaties was kept secret until Bismarck made them public in 1867, when France tried to acquire Luxembourg.
Franco-Prussian War
The controversy with the Second French Empire over the candidacy of a Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne was escalated both by France and Bismarck. With his Ems Dispatch, Bismarck took advantage of an incident in which the French ambassador had approached William. The government of Napoleon III, expecting another civil war among the German states, declared war against Prussia, continuing Franco-German enmity. Honouring their treaties, the German states joined forces and quickly defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Following victory under Bismarck's and Prussia's leadership, Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria—which had remained outs | |
